California Cannabis Updates

Last-known Californian in prison for federal cannabis charges released after 15 years

Published

2 years ago

March 6, 2023

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CBS news

Medical marijuana has been legal in California for more than a quarter of a century, but the impact of the federal ban is still apparent all these years later. One Bay Area man is finally free after serving 15 years in prison for opening a licensed medical cannabis shop.

Luke Scarmazzo represents the end of an era. He is the last known Californian to be released from prison for a federal medical cannabis charge.

It’s been just 20 days since Scarmazzo was released, and he’s still adjusting to his life back in Modesto.

“I’m making a chicken salad lunch – something I didn’t get to do a lot in prison so I’m, like, super taking advantage of it,” Scarmazzo told CBS News Bay Area.

He crunches up Doritos to top his salad, a trick he picked up while serving nearly 15 years of a 22-year federal sentence.

In 2004 Scarmazzo and his business partner opened the first licensed medical cannabis store in the Central Valley.

“It was an uncertainty, it was an unknown,” Scarmazzo explained. “It was something that hadn’t been done before so there were a lot of what-ifs. We knew we would get some pushback because the Central Valley tends to be more conservative but we couldn’t imagine what ended up happening.”

At first, he saw huge success in part due to local regulations that created a monopoly for his business. It quickly turned into a passion, helping people going through intense treatments ease their pains.

“There was some loose regulation but nothing that was exactly how you should operate so we took the route of ‘Let’s go above and beyond on regulation,’” Scarmazzo said. “But when the city realized what they had done they called the federal government.”

Medicinal cannabis has been legal in California since 1996 and recreationally since 2018. But possession and distribution of cannabis — medicinal or not — remains illegal under federal law and carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years, just what Scarmazzo received.

“[I thought] this can’t be true, like, how did we do everything right and follow all the state laws and do everything we were supposed to do and be found guilty of a charge that will put us away for 20-plus years?” said Scarmazzo.

Over the next 15 years he was transferred to several federal prisons across the country, an experience he describes as traumatic. But the worst part, he said, was being away from his daughter who is now 20 years old.

“It didn’t feel like we were wrongly convicted but it felt like it was an injustice not only for the amount of time we received on a first-time drug offense,” Scarmazzo recalled. “It had to be somebody and it might as well have been me.”

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California Cannabis Updates

Not Very Beat! Don’t Expect A Espresso or Piece Of Cake At A Cannabis Cafe In San Francisco

Published

2 weeks ago

January 12, 2025

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The simplest way to turn cannabis cafes into mini ghettos that give cashed up gentrifiers an opportunity to complain is this…

SF Gate has the story

Don’t expect to buy a latte and smoke a joint inside a San Francisco cannabis cafe anytime soon.

Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s legalizing cannabis cafes and a statewide law going into effect last week that allows cannabis lounges to sell food and drinks, San Francisco’s pot lounges are still unable to prepare food. The city told SFGATE this week that there’s no estimate for when they will be able to do so.

The disconnect is due to the fact that while cannabis cafes are legal at the state level, city law still prohibits pot lounges in San Francisco from selling prepared food like a sandwich or an espresso.

The consumption lounge at the Vapor Room, a cannabis dispensary on Ninth Street just south of Market Street, in San Francisco, on Dec. 4, 2024.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Assemblymember Matt Haney, the San Francisco Democrat who introduced the cannabis cafe bill in the California Legislature, told SFGATE he thought the city government would have been prepared to allow pot cafes to open up in SF after the state cleared the way.

“I honestly thought that was their plan, so I’m a little surprised that they’re not immediately ready to roll this out. It’s a bigger opportunity for San Francisco than maybe anywhere else in the state,” Haney said.

San Francisco has at least eight approved cannabis lounges, where customers can purchase and smoke cannabis. State law has historically prohibited these lounges from selling any food or drinks, but Haney’s bill lifts that statewide prohibition and allows the lounges to prepare food as long as they have local approval.

Rose Harless lights a marijuana joint at the Vapor Room, a cannabis dispensary on Ninth Street just south of Market Street, in San Francisco on Dec. 4, 2024.

Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE

Angela Yip, a spokesperson for the San Francisco Office of Cannabis, said city departments are “continuing to work together internally to streamline local implementation of the state law” and directed further questions to the city Department of Public Health. A health department spokesperson who declined to be named told SFGATE by email that the department is working on developing requirements but declined to estimate when those rules would be released.

Haney’s bill is modeled on the cannabis cafes that are popular in Amsterdam, where people can purchase and enjoy coffee, food and cannabis within the same restaurant. Cannabis lounges are rarely legal in America, and the new law makes California one of the only places in the country where businesses can legally serve food to customers who are also smoking marijuana. While San Francisco delays allowing lounges to sell food, cannabis cafes are up and running in other California cities like West Hollywood and Coachella.

Haney was inspired to legalize cannabis cafes after visiting such establishments in Thailand and the Netherlands, where he said the cafes were enjoyable social experiences. The lawmaker said it would be a “huge missed opportunity” if San Francisco didn’t take advantage of the new cannabis cafe law.

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California Cannabis Updates

August 23 2024: Department of Cannabis Control Files Emergency Rulemaking Action to Readopt Cultivation License Changes pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 26061.5

Published

5 months ago

August 24, 2024

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Department of Cannabis Control Files Emergency Rulemaking Action to Readopt Cultivation License Changes pursuant to Business and Professions Code section 26061.5

August 23, 2024

The Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) has filed an action with the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) to readopt its emergency regulations implementing Senate Bill 833, codified in Business and Professions Code section 26061.5, which requires the DCC to allow cultivation licensees to make certain changes including: change the type of size of a cultivation license; place a cultivation license in inactive status; or make a one-time change to a cultivation license’s date of renewal.

View the proposed finding of emergency and notice of proposed adoption and the proposed text of emergency regulations below:

The five-calendar day public comment period for this emergency action starts once OAL posts notice of the filing on its website. Emergency regulations under review by OAL can be found on its Emergency Regulation’s Under Review webpage.

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California Cannabis Updates

Oakland police seize banned tobacco products, psilocybin candy bars from smoke shop

Published

6 months ago

July 13, 2024

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Oakland police are investigating an unlicensed smoke shop in East Oakland where officers seized several illegal products earlier this week, including cartons of banned tobacco products from out of state and nearly 10 pounds of marijuana bud.

Police on Wednesday confiscated other items at the shop in the 2500 block of Seminary Avenue that included Psilocybin “magic” mushroom candy bars and close to 20 pounds of suspected THC products.

Officers with the police department’s Alcohol Beverage Action Team were following up on anonymous complaints about the shop. In addition to seizing illegal items, they detained a store clerk.

No arrests were made, but the case will be forwarded to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office for further action, including civil charges and potential eviction, police said in a news release on Thursday.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/east-oakland-smoke-shop-bust-illegal-tobacco-marijuana-mushrooms-thc-seminary-avenue/

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